High-quality surface YBCO thin films prepared by off-axis pulsed laser deposition technique

Abstract

Epitaxial YBCO superconducting thin films have been grown in-situ by XeCl excimer laser ablation using an off-axis deposition geometry. This PLD geometry allows to obtain films with an excellent surface morphology without droplets or other particulates. The as-obtained YBCO films exhibit good structural and superconducting properties with T c( R = 0) =89.5 K, R (300)/ R (100)=2.8, ΔT = 1.3 K, J c = 2 × 10 6 A/cm 2 (at 77 K and zero magnetic field) and full width half maximum of the rocking curve of the (005) YBCO peak of about 0.16°. These structural and electrical properties are very close to those of the YBCO films deposited by the conventional PLD on-axis geometry.